If Electabuzz gets a CH across two turns (37% chance), Vaporeon also needs to CH and KO to win.
Of the chance Electabuzz doesn't CH (63%), Vaporeon has about a 64% chance to 2HKO and a 64% chance to hit both Hydros.
That's about 26% or so.

There's also Paralysis chances. So yeah, Vaporeon could Hydro Pump. If you don't get the KO, Electabuzz is likely to have a lot of HP left. Better yet, switch to a Water.

I want to come back to this point: If Borderline is a playable metagame, then according to smogon, it's name should be UU. Consider this just renaming the tiers. If it were up to me, NU would then involve no Vaporeons, Poliwraths or Golducks, but whatever, that isnt what is particularly important.. I think, really you guys should be getting in behind this idea, since it is basically following RBY2k10s tiering ideas.

But back to the argument about the current state of uu: what I am getting here is the list of things that actually counter Vaporeon includes only Dewgong.

Pokemons usefulness in OU is not relevant to this conversation. So Dugtrio beating Gengar, is not really worth mentioning.

Any uu team will be able to deal with Jolteon just by having a ground type. Switching into Nidoking in UU is pretty dangerous really. I dont think Jolteon will be as used as Electabuzz is now. It may not even be used more than Raichu.

Also for netbattle, and idea for beating Dewgong is to use Hydropump or Blizzard sometimes on Golduck or Poli over Icebeam and Surf. Wouldnt that piss them off..

So your point is that there shouldn't be a playable meta without a ban tier above it, right?
iirc, we had a similar discussion in rby2k10, since people decided to move some overpowered BL pokes to OU despite not having enough usage to be OU.

So the main question is imo whether tiers should be based merely on usage, having a ban tier for each usage based tier (UU has BL, OU has Ubers; but BL doesn't change even if there is something clearly overpowered), or the tier "playability" should be the main concern when making tiers, and, therefore, OU should also act as a BL ban tier and UU as a NU ban tier.

To avoid "waters countering waters", the only solution is imo banning amnesiers, as they are only walled by other waters. This would imply banning Vap as well I guess since it would be clearly overpowered then; in the current meta Poli/Golduck make Vap less overpowered and vice versa. Making this change would turn into a completely different meta though; better meta or worse meta is subjetive.

Charizard is much better that other fire types, yet it's still pretty bad in UU. Without Charizard, fire types would NEVER exist in UU.

Lastly, being overpowered or not, it's also very subjetive, and if one poke is good or bad for the meta; or if that meta with A, B and C banned would be better than this one, even more subjetive. Think of GSC Snorlax, or just RBY Tauros. There will always be one poke better than the rest, and then the second best etc. Creating a meta where everything is equally good is impossible, and would be a stupid meta imo.

I was just wondering if people even use any other Fire types other then Charizard and moltres, because Charizard uses EQ and Moltres Fire Blast 2HKOs most things?

If Jolteon uses FE can it 3HKO electabuzz? I guess Jolteon woul dhave to have Body Slam or Hyper Beam, or Double-Edge right?

I thouht Fire Types were only used in UU, not in O?

Click to expand...

Arcanine is my favorite Fire from RBY. But I was never a competitive player in RBY so my opinion is most likely null and void. What is a good set for Arcanine anyway? I use... Fire Blast, Double Edge, Hyper Beam, Reflect. inb4itsucks.

It's still good enough for UU to be the standard imo... Graveler does have a low special stat, but what about Omastar, Kabutops, Electabuzz (assuming it's paralysed and weakened, otherwise you won't stay in)? All are possible switch-ins for Charizard (Electabuzz more prominent than the rest) and Earthquake is the best coverage move for these.

I've got quite strong opinions on the matter because I've been advocating using a couple of BL Pokemon as many people tend to say that the RBY Pokemon pool is incrediblly shallow. There's a few Pokemon currently residing in Borderline I'd like to see moved up.

Cloyster - I have no idea why this wasn't OU in the first place. Cloyster holds a valuble place on the majority of my teams and it really is a star. It sports a humungous base defense stat, allowing it to switch-in to Pokemon like Persian, Tauros or Rhydon on a whim and has a powerful Ice STAB, STAB Wrap and a way of dispose of Chansey / other threats when you feel you should.

Victreebel - Quite an amazing Pokemon that seems to have even less attention than Cloyster. It's got awesome attacking stats on both sides, the ability to incapacitate a Pokemon with sleep powder and a reliable way to boost Sp.Atk / Atk. It can also run a Wrap set that isn't in any way threatened by the Rock-types which is pretty awesome.

Dragonite - Let's see, the highest attack stat in the entire game and awesome bulk coupled with an expansive movepool slowed only by it's average speed and Ice-type weakness. It is probably the most effective Wrapper in the entire game especially considering it's ability to boost speed with Agility and poses an incredible threat against teams with BoltBeam coverage and immensely powerful Hyper Beams

Dodrio - I think you underestimate Dodrio a lot, especially since you put Kangaskhan over him. Dodrio is very similar to both Tauros and Persian, it lacks the ability to beat the Rock duo but in return gains the ability to put a lot more hurt on Exeggutor, while Kangaskhan doesn't really gain anything over either of the two. I've run a team composed of Dodrio / Persian / Tauros which was a lot of fun lol. I feel this little three headed bird deserves a spot in the OU along with the rest of them.

I've been saying that a few of the BL Pokemon, these 4 especially should head to the OU tier. I'm pretty sure we can all agree on Cloyster, but give the other 3 a thought.

Dnite's viability depends on Wrap. Otherwise it's just a worse Gyara without STAB that threatens everything but switches-in into nothing, consequently sucking.

Cloyster's role is 100% walling Snorlaxes and if it's not needed exploding into Chansey/Lapras/Starmie; it dies to quickly to STAB Rock Slides and doesnt enjoy tbolts from Persian or CHs from Tauros (as well as the fact that cloy outspeeds lax but doesn't outspeed Tau/Persian). Anyway Persian sucks.

Dodrio can't almost touch Rhydon/Golem.

Victreebel and Venusaur are both quite good and along Cloyster, they can easily be moved to OU if usage statistics show it, but I wouldn't really care much about changing +10 year old tiers. Vict/venu/cloy/arti/persian/jolti/zap?/etc in BL is ok ; in OU it's equally ok.

FB will do similar. And a burn lets you 2 shot (does burn damage take effect the turn it hits?).

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fat Kamex's RBY stuff guide said:

The pokémon becomes burned, and loses 1/16th of its maximum HP at the end of each of
its turns in a round.

[...]

If the pokémon is burned during a round that it switches in, it will only be subjected to
recurrent burn damage that round if its speed is less than or equal to the opponent's speed. If
the pokémon is burned and is switched in, it will be subjected to recurrent burn damage before
the opponent makes a move if its speed is greater than the opponent's, but after the opponent
makes a move if its speed is less than or equal to the opponent's. If both pokémon switch in
and are burned or poisoned, recurrent damage will be done in order according to their current
speed values.

Click to expand...

Crazy!

There is one nice advantage Dnite has over gyarados in Thunderwave. But yeah, no wrap is pretty bad for it. This isnt really important here, though. It does have wrap.

I have a relatively "noob" question. If the tier has so many Amnesiers, why is Clefable in BL? It doesn't seem to have the Special/Attack to blow its way through the tier without setup, and while it's got that variety of options, I don't see it breaking UU.